I found my old hat, the one with all of the adventures attached to it. It was in pretty sorry shape. There was a lot of awful-looking sweat on the inside band, and the outside had large spots and stains from only heaven knows what. I treated all of the stains with a good stain remover gel and let it sit overnight. Then I washed it and patched up any little tears. Compared to how it looked when I finally found it again, it came out pretty darn good.
Except I didn’t like it as much anymore. It sure didn’t look like my hat. My hat was covered
with adventures. There was sweat inside
of it from toiling in the gardens and shoveling the compost bins and chasing
the chickens. I had mowed lawns with it,
repaired fences, and chopped wood.
Whenever I had to walk a long distance in the summer, which was often, I
always grabbed my hat so my head wouldn’t get burned from the sun.
 |
| The old hat. |
But there were other adventures it was good for, too. Long days of fishing, or waiting for a bite
anyway, found me in my hat. I traipsed
through the woods with it on my secret fairy walks because it helped with the
bugs. It sure was welcome whenever a
rainstorm came up out of nowhere, which is pretty common on the coast. I hung out with horses and pet donkeys and
alpacas and sheep when I was wearing it.
It kept the sun out of my eyes so I could see and help all the
animals. There were so many magical,
mystical, and mysterious things that have happened to me when I had this hat
on, although I never really paid much attention to it.
Then I lost it. I’m
not sure how. I missed it at first, for
quite a while actually, but then I made do with other things. Eventually, I just forgot about it and never
thought of it again. And then . . .
there it was, all of a sudden. As I said
above, I thought it was in pretty sorry shape, so I did what I could do to
spiff it up a bit.
But now . . . it’s different. It’s the same hat, but not really. The old hat had so many great memories and
adventures and difficult but satisfying work attached to it, but I scrubbed
them all off by accident. I’m not so
sure about this hat. It looks downright fancy to me. I’ll have to think about it, I guess. I don’t like to let things go to waste. I suppose it could be helpful when mowing the lawn tomorrow, and I’ve got some
work in the greenhouse to do, too.
I’m going to give it another chance, but it’s on probation
until it can prove itself. What this hat
needs is a few really good adventures, and where better to get them but in my
magical woods in Maine? Time is on my side.
